War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday the U.S. war effort against Iran has entered a new phase, with American forces targeting Tehran's defense industrial base after earlier strikes battered the country's air, naval, and missile forces.
Speaking at a Pentagon briefing alongside Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth said the air campaign known as Operation Epic Fury is shifting from destroying Iran's conventional military capabilities to preventing the country from rebuilding them.
"But it's not just that Iran doesn't have a functioning air force, or that their entire navy is at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, or their missile force is shrinking daily," he said.
"Even more importantly, they also don't have the ability to build more. That's the most important component I'd like to emphasize today," Hegseth said.
He said U.S. strikes are now focused on factories, infrastructure, and research sites tied to weapons production across Iran.
"Soon — and very soon — all of Iran's defense companies will be destroyed," Hegseth said.
"For example, as of two days ago, Iran's entire ballistic missile production capacity — every company that builds every component of those missiles — has been functionally defeated. Destroyed buildings, complexes, and factory lines all across Iran, destroyed."
A War Department fact sheet released Monday said U.S. Central Command struck more than 5,000 targets in the first 10 days of the campaign.
Hegseth on Tuesday vowed that it would be the "most intense day of strikes" yet, saying the next wave would escalate the pace and scale of attacks on Iranian military infrastructure.
Then on Friday he said it could mark the heaviest bombing day, with strikes rising by about 20%, and that the focus is increasingly on "their production lines, their military plants, their defense innovation centers."
Iran's missile industry has long been a pillar of the country's military strategy, in part because sanctions and decades of isolation left Tehran reliant on missiles and drones while much of its air fleet aged after aircraft purchases made before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The U.S. has repeatedly described those missile and production networks as core targets of the operation, and Hegseth said this month that the campaign was focused on destroying Iran's offensive missiles, missile production, and navy while stopping Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
"The conventional side is a huge part at getting at denying nuclear capabilities," Hegseth said.
The latest escalation comes as international scrutiny of Iran's nuclear activities remains high, with the International Atomic Energy Agency saying in a report released this month that Tehran still must provide required reports and declarations for affected nuclear facilities and associated material under its safeguard obligations.
The Pentagon has framed the campaign as a limited military effort rather than an open-ended war, but officials have also said the objectives are not yet complete and battle damage assessments are continuing in real time.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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